Hi, I request a permanent updates policy exception for WebKitGTK. I've been ignoring the updates policy for about a decade now, continuously updating to the latest stable release even when that requires a rebase in stable versions of Fedora. This violates the updates policy.

I think an exception should be uncontroversial because (a) WebKitGTK updates often fix many CVEs, and (b) library ABI is carefully maintained, and (c) so far so good: updating has worked well so far, sometimes things break, but we don't get too many complaints. The following points from the updates policy apply:

• "The update fixes a security issue that would affect a large number of users." The large volume of WebKit CVEs is the primary motivation for regular rebasing. (A new major version is released every 6 months, in March and September.)
• "The update doesn’t change ABI/API and nothing needs to be rebuilt against the new version." Stable library ABI is maintained.

One of the negative points also applies: "The update causes behavior changes (something that was denied is allowed, etc.)" Behavior changes can occur even in stable updates, but it's more likely in major version updates. I believe this risk is outweighed by the security benefit of regularly updating.